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Criticism of a Recent Title by D'Elia and Haig.

The sighting of a giant bird as was reported from a syndicated nineteenth-century newspaper article serves as arguably one of the most convincing accounts of an historical record of the Andean Condor’s presence in the United States.  This story, which has been of recent quoted in several instances, serves as the subject of this post.  After carefully considering the content of the piece I feel that the description allows for a diagnostic identification of the Andean Condor Vultur gryphus and that, most importantly, any other ascriptions to a species other than the Andean deserve rejection.

However, no evidence of the bird that was identified was preserved to further substantiate this claim of its occurrence, and the story alone must be relied upon when considering the case.  I feel that the particulars yield a sighting which nonetheless bears consistency in what was described, given the unseemly presence of a condor where it appeared.  By evidence, either a photograph of the individual would have been necessary or the bird itself would have to have been killed to preserve it as a specimen for record, and as neither would be satisfied owing to the momentary appearance of it where it was seen the sighting stands as a hypothetical record in line with similar accounts based on observations alone (such as that of the King Vulture in Arizona [UAC7]).

The text of the story was generally quoted as follows, having appeared in syndication in various newspapers following the sighting, which took place August 15, 1871.  The California location is erroneous.  Winnemucca is a city in Humboldt County, Nevada, however there is a lake by that name near Kirkwood, Alpine County, California and also a dry lakebed near Pyramid Lake, Washoe County, Nevada.

“Last Tuesday evening about seven o’clock, says the Winnemucca (Cal.) Register of August 19, the people in the lower town were startled by the sudden appearance of a huge monster we are at a loss to know whether to call fowl or beast, not-withstanding it had wings and could fly.  It was certainly the biggest creature even seen in this country with feathers.  If a bird, it belongs to a giant species unknown to American ornithology.  Our attention was first attracted by hearing some one sing out, “Holy Mother, see that cow with wings.”  We stepped to the door just in time to see the monster alight with something of a crash on the roof of Mrs. Collier’s dwelling house, where it remained for several minutes taking a quiet survey of the land and the astonished multitude who stood gazing at that unexpected visitor.  It could not have weighed less than seventy or one hundred lbs., with a pair of ponderous wings, which, when stretched out to the breeze, must have been fully twelve feet from tip to tip.  Its color was that of a raven, with the exception that the tip of its wings and tail were white.  An “old salt,” who happened to get sight of the bird, thinks he must be a renegade member of the condor family.  He says he has frequently met with such “critters” on the coast of South America.”

My first source was from Mark A. Hall’s Thunderbirds (2007 ed.; 73, 113) in which the author made reference to the story.  The text as it is generally presented here appeared on the website Wildbirds Broadcasting (June 14, 2012) taken from the Macon [Georgia] Telegraph and Messenger (6126: 2) for September 15, 1871; however I dispute the date of occurrence given (August 1, 1871) and find it reasonable to concur with the text as presented in D’Elia and Haig, which I discuss below, as the Daily Union piece they quote follows only a week after August 19, thus giving me reason to assign as I did the date of the actual sighting (date of “August 9” may have been a recurring misprint if it had been used).  Recent references to the story I have traced on the website Lumberwoods (“Cryptid Sightings,” Lenwood Sharpe; July 17, 2016) where the date “June 5, 1872” is erroneous, and this was subsequently quoted July 25, 2016 on the Cryptozoology Informational Blog (“Cryptids”).  Another online source which quotes it (Aoty, “America’s Fearsome Creatures”) also includes information on related sightings of cryptozoological and anomalous creatures–

http://archive.4plebs.org/dl/tg/image/1493/27/1493273681631.pdf .

As the story was syndicated and published widely throughout the United States and Canada, I will cite newspapers which I was now able to trace through my searches:

—-[Sacramento] Daily Union; August 26, 1871 (see below)

—-New York Times; September 7, 1871

—-New Orleans Republican; September 14, 1871 (truncated version of account begins “The Winnemucca (California) Register thus writes of a ponderous bird recently seen in that place:  “Our attention…””)

—-The Pittsburgh Commercial; September 16, 1871 (4)

—-The [Columbus] Ohio Statesman (40:221 (1)); September 18, 1871

—-St. Catherines [Ontario] Evening Journal;  September 20, 1871

—-Indiana [Pennsylvania] Weekly Messenger; September 20, 1871 (last sentence omitted)

—-[Plattsmouth] Nebraska Herald (7:27 (3)); October 5, 1871 (“Winnemu[c]a, California, has been visited by an immense bird supposed to be a member of the condor family.  The attention of the editor of the Winnemuca Register was called to the visitor by hearing some one exclaim, “Howly Mother, see that cow with wings!””)

In late 2013 was I also able to find another verbatim reprint of the text in a title which had just been published and which serves as the subject of this post and my argument.  It is quoted (entry #59) in California Condors of the Pacific Northwest (D’Elia & Haig, 2013 [forward by Noel Snyder]), Oregon State University Press, where the authors formally treat the story as a record of observation of that species–and this I dispute.  That the bird was described as a “cow with wings” provides a reasonable argument not for the Californian, which is almost wholly black and has but little white on its upperwings, but rather of the Andean Condor, which in the adult readily betrays a piebald pattern.  I think that for the report to call the tail “white” would be an oversight of the folded wing (white of the secondaries) covering the tail and creating that impression.  Some printings of the story had omitted the last statement or the last two statements (any examples of the latter not cited here as they could not be traced at time of writing), yet these serve as an important reinforcement for an Andean argument in that a witness had “”frequently met with such “critters” on the coast of South America.” Jesse D’Elia and Susan Haig actually quote this much also ([Sacramento] Daily Union), despite their assignment, and D’Elia recently prepared a separate dissertation, quoting it again (“California Condors in the Pacific Northwest:  Integrating History, Molecular Ecology, and Spatial Modeling for Reintroduction Planning,” 330–331 (December 8, 2014)).  

From D’Elia’s dissertation (161), which essentially recapitulates the arguments of the above title, the Winnemucca sighting is treated as a legitimate observation of the California Condor Gymnogyps californianus.  The sighting is given a “High” rating in terms of Positional accuracy of the locality of the sighting being precise (the city name being identified rather than it being a vague reference to the county or state).  The observation is rated “5” as a Reliability score, such ranking apparently the lowest score on their scale and thus suggestive of the Winnemucca sighting being one which is deficient in certain respects, though the rankings also seem to be a classification of the type of records examined rather than a reflection on the question of the veracity of the sightings alone.  This is thus defined (164) as “firsthand or secondhand observation with no physical evidence and no bird-in-hand, but with sufficient details to rule out other raptors; not proximal in time (within 10 years) or space (within 100 km of physical evidence or reliable firsthand accounts).”  

Jesse D’Elia also stresses that the appendix of records which include the Winnemucca sightings constitute legitimate observations of Californians in maps therein (example, 138) and also by drawing distinction between those said records and a separate list of “putative” sightings or claims of its occurrence.

“In addition to the condor occurrence data reported in Table 2.2, there are a small number of other purported condor observations east of the Cascade Range and Sierra Nevada, but these lack credibility or sufficient details to determine their reliability: [42]”

photograph by F. H. Holmes

The most extensive white areas of the California Condor, the underwing coverts, are not adequate to justify a comparison to a piebald pattern, as the above example of the outstretched underwings of a freshly-killed adult from Big Sur, California demonstrates (Bent, Life Histories of North American Birds:  Falconiformes and Strigiformes (Part One); Bulletin 167, Plate 5).  In 1896, when this picture was taken, it was considered appropriate or customary to kill condors as they were perceived as a threat to livestock as well as how they posed an attractive and impressive find to any collector’s interests, and thus the image also adequately portrays contemporary sentiments which Californians and settlers had towards them.  (See also Belding, “Land Birds of the Pacific District” in Occasional Papers of the California Academy of Sciences (2: 24–26 (1890)) where he quotes from Heermann, who had “known these marauders to drag forth from its concealment and devour a deer within an hour.”)

Plate from John James Audubon (“California Vulture,” 426) also reveals how the upperwings show limited white margins on the secondaries and on the tips of the wing-coverts.

In assessing the Winnemucca record my counterargument, that in the first the description does not apply to the Californian and in the second that it does apply to the Andean, is straightforward.  By describing the bird as a “cow with wings” I see, as noted, a ready comparison to the bovine stereotype, the Holstein Freisian cow.  

1898 chromolithograph print of the Holstein-Fresian Cow.

(source not available)

The cow archetype has extensive areas of white, particularly along its lower extremities, the legs and hindquarters.  In considering between either of the condor species which fits closer to this pattern, it is incontrovertible that it would apply to the Andean.  At the same time I go further to argue that the California Condor is not only the least likely of the two to be given the comparison between them but that, as noted, it would be an inappropriate comparison no less.  That the description refers to the “wings and tail” being white also correlates to the Andean as my above explanation conveys, and a Californian in its plumage is lacking in any white areas to possibly allow that impression–a mistaken one, as neither species has a white tail.  

What was observed was a remarkable and rare occurrence of the Vultur gryphus in Nevada in the year 1871.  I feel confident that this was not a different species nor a species unknown to record however the impression of the color of the tail, however it being a hypothetical record as it was not properly evidenced.  D’Elia and Haig do not offer explanations for their decision to treat the record as an observation of the Californian, and I might assume that their reasoning is due to the location of the sighting falling close within the distribution of that species to allow for the notion to perpetuate of the lone individual being a nomadic accidental as it is understood that they have such propensity for extra-limital movement.  (A tagged immature Californian, N8, was identified in Los Alamos, Los Alamos County, New Mexico April 24, 2015, its provenance being from the reintroduced stock in Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona.  See also New Mexico Ornithological Society Field Notes (54 (2)), reference to 2014 therein erroneous).

The appearance of an Andean Condor in Nevada as a rare sighting deserves explanation itself if this newspaper story is to be believed.  Such an explanation should fall into a greater discussion on the Andean’s true propensity for extreme extra-limital dispersal, a matter which will given separate treatment.  It is of interest to note, however the point needs further consideration, that Winnemucca, Nevada is situated at nearly the same parallel (40°58′ N) as the location of another important sighting in this series–Lawndale, Illinois (40°13′ N); the difficulty is whether the western U.S. is in a similar manner a point of disposition for accidental condors as is the eastern half in spite of geophysical differences.

Images of adult Andean Condors showing wings outspread from Wikimedia archives (Eric Kilby (above), user Bastihitzi (below)).

The piebald or pied pattern is typical of the adult Andean Condors but is absent in the immatures and younger birds.  What function this pattern serves is probably one which, in part, may facilitate identification of soaring birds as being of their kind by other Andeans when observed by each other from considerable distances.  This pattern in Andeans is not unique among birds if I consider the pattern of white secondary panels, as the picture below of the White-winged Scoter shows.  I have also included two examples of bird species which show pied plumage, though there are many more than the two; however it is a digression to feature them in The Unknown Andean Condor, I do so drawing emphasis again to how the expression “cow with wings,” as quoted from the story, is equivalent to a pied pattern and thus equivalent to an adult Andean Condor, yet certainly not like the California Condor.

Plate (Volume II, 54) from John Gould, Birds of Australia of the Grallina australis [Magpie-Lark, Grallina cyanoleuca].

Plate XXVII by John Gerrard Keulemans from Seebohm, Monograph of the Turdidae, of Geocichla wardii [Pied Thrush, Zoothera wardii].

plate from Henry Eeles Dresser, History of the Birds of Europe [Keulemans]

The Velvet Scoter (White-winged Scoter) Oedemia fusca [Melanitta fusca] is one species which bears a plumage pattern somewhat similar to that of the Andean Condor, as they show white secondaries against black wings, though the corresponding underwing is white as well.  In the White-winged Scoter the females have darker irides and show sexual dimorphism in contrast with the white-eyed males, another comparison which holds to some degree with the Andean.  Similarly, as a further example, a common desert species in western North America, the Phainopepla Phainopepla nitens, shows contrasting characters; it is the males which shows red eyes and the females which are darker.  Males also show white wing panels–on both the upperwing and underwing–however these are on its primaries and not its secondaries.  That similarities such as these exist in very unrelated types of birds to allow for a cursory illustration of them here, in comparison to the condor, is a point which was neither anticipated nor providing by way of explanation.

Mathew Louis

Written May 19, 2017.

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This entry was posted in Andean Condor, California Condor.